Covered vs uncovered

[Scozza]

It is with some interest that I have noted that a lot of systems end up with the fish in the shed and the veg in the sun. I'm really interested in knowing how much sun fish actually need, if any! I know they live at various depths in their natural habitat but had thought that sunlight was a natural input to AP systems as far as fish were concerned.

Cheers,

Scott.

[Outbackozzie]

The fish need no sun whatsoever.

[nwestwood]

My tank is wrapped and mostly covered to control the tank temperature. In the sun, the water super heats in the day and at night, uncovered, it will radiate away the heat. In my system the temps normally run 68 at night and 70-72 in the day (20C-22C). Uncovered it would run up to 75+( 24-26C). Not good for my plants. Mine is covered to keep the temps down in the day. In the winter, I will have to heat to keep it up and may try uncovering the tank in the day.

[Scozza]

Thanks for the replies (-: I'm now looking into the viability of controlling fish tank temperature with a coupled solar hot water heating jacket. As we're planning to set up where summer temperatures can reach 45C and winter down to 0C I think water temperature will become an issue. I'm hoping to go for a fish in shed, veg in polytunnel approach; piping the water between them through using the fall of the land. Hopefully a well insulated shed will give me some control of the ambient temperature around the tanks, then all I need to do is find a way to control the temp of water returning to the system from the grow beds. Has anyone tried a polytunnel in combination with AP?

Cheers,

Scott.